What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor

I can’t believe I didn’t think to put the two together before. Baked beans are a traditional down east dish that I ate regularly as a kid, and still make a couple of times a year. Served up with real brown bread (bread made with molasses, not whole wheat bread), this is a perfect dish on a cold Saturday night in the winter. Also traditional on a cold winter’s night is a glass of rum, and the flavours here combine really well. I was a little heavy-handed with the rum in my test batch, thus the restrained 2 tablespoons in the ingredients list, but rum lovers can add up to a quarter of a cup. Just be warned that not all the alcohol burns off, so these beans have a bit of a kick to them.

I used Sailor Jerry spiced rum because I have seekrit aspirations to be a hipster, but mostly because that’s what I had on hand. But any decently flavoured spiced rum would do.

Wash beans and soak overnight or cover with water and boil 1-1/2 to 2 hours or until soft. Preheat oven to 350°F. In bean crock, mix beans with all remaining ingredients except rum. Cover with water to the top of the beans and bake for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Add more water if you find the beans are becoming too dry. At 2 hour mark, add rum and bake for another 30 – 45 minutes.